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it. “No.”
    “Jesus. Me neither.”
    “What was it I said about blasphemy?” said Pike idly from where he lay in the grass.
    “You said I was a Jew before you said anything about blasphemy. Jesus is your God, not mine.”
    “I think the whole northeast is lost to godlessness,” said Pike. “All city folk and Yankees hold nothing sacred.”
    Time ticked by. The wind rose and fell. Then Roosevelt came out of the cart looking irritated.
    “Damn it all!” he told the carnie leaning up against the cart. “That was just… just… Damn it, you just suckered me out of
     money!”
    “Sucker hell,” said the carnie. “I didn’t sucker anything. You might’ve just not liked what she said.”
    “I didn’t like any of it!” said Roosevelt. “Everything she said was just damn insulting! Come on, let’s go, boys,” he said
     to them, and began to stomp away.
    “What did she say?” said Pike.
    “What?” said Roosevelt, and he stopped.
    “What did she say?”
    Roosevelt looked at them a moment longer. Then he swore and strode away toward the carnival, shaking his head.
    “Could be there’s something here worth a listen,” said Pike, and he stood and gave the man a few coins and went in.
    After he was gone the carnie looked at Connelly and Hammond on the grass. He smiled at them. “Say, you boys want anything,
     uh… anything extra with this?” he asked.
    “Extra?” said Hammond.
    “Sure. You look like you boys been on the road a while. Probably been lonely.” He took another belt from his flask and nodded
     at the cart.
    “Probably costs a considerable amount more than a fortune-telling, huh?” said Hammond.
    “Probably. But it improves your immediate future a hell of a lot, I’ll tell you that.”
    Hammond eyed the people at the carnival and smiled. “I can probably improve my fortune for free.”
    “Jesus, you’re not going to find anything under a hundred and fifty pounds over there. Any farmgirl still drinking beer at
     this time of night ain’t nothing worth looking at.”
    “I don’t know,” said Hammond with a wry grin. “It’s a pretty dark night.”
    “Goddamn. Suit yourself. What about you, big fella?” he said to Connelly.
    Connelly shook his head.
    “You don’t say much, do you?”
    Connelly shook his head again.
    The carnie grunted, chuckled, then drank and spat.
    Pike charged out of the cart looking downright furious. “A waste of time,” he said angrily. “A waste of time and money.”
    “Told you so,” said Hammond.
    “Nothing but lies come out of her mouth. Nothing but lies. Just bitchery and foolishness is what it is.” Pike spat at the carnie’s shoes and
     strode off toward the carnival after Roosevelt.
    “Well, hell,” said Hammond, and got to his feet. “Now I’m curious.”
    “Ain’t we all,” said the carnie, who wiped his shoes in the grass. He seemed used to such treatment. He took Hammond’s coins
     and he and Connelly watched as Hammond passed through the beaded curtain and vanished into the darkness of the cart.
    “There he goes,” said the carnie.
    “Yeah,” said Connelly.
    “You know, it’s funny. Most people don’t like what Sibyl says.”
    “Is that so.”
    “It is. Most folk hate it. And I got to figure, that’s odd. I mean, most fortune-telling acts around here now, they just say
     something nice and happy or something mysterious that don’t mean anything at all. Bunch of fwoosh and bang and such. But Sibyl
     just makes them mad. Mad until one or two come true, then they just think she’s heaven on earth.”
    Connelly grunted.
    “I keep telling her that when she says something good, she got to stop right there. Don’t go no further. But no. If she tells
     someone about marrying, well, then she’ll tell them about how their woman will get fat after the first birth and go blind
     and then he’ll be sick of her, or if they win money how they’ll just blow it on some damn fool thing or just stupid idleness,
     and if